


every road leads here

by reneewvlkers



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alcohol, M/M, al has problems with pacing, also it's kind of kandreil?, as always the ships are pretty backseat, come on it's tfc it's never going to be happy, depends on your interpretation anyway, i can't help that i think of friendships as Really Really Gay, i try to make it cute but i always make em get together at the end, it seems mundane then gets a lil bit epic then turns out to be mundane again, main character literally goes missing, maybe past riko/kevin, reference to abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-09-23 10:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9651692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reneewvlkers/pseuds/reneewvlkers
Summary: Point is, Neil likes sharing a bed with Andrew, and Andrew decided to allow it. Most of the time. But always after drinking. (“Someone has to make sure you don’t kill yourself, Josten.”)The thought that Andrew should be here sticks in Neil’s head like the absence of a hangover.No texts.No missed calls.





	

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this was meant to be a valentine's gift for the [valentines exchange](http://aftgexchange.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, so i thought i'd do something cute.
> 
> it turned into this.
> 
> (for [@elswicked](http://elswicked.tumblr.com/), and happy valentines day to everyone <3)

Neil does not know a world without Andrew at his back. He’s always been there, a constant, reassuring presence. He’s almost like Neil’s shadow, if a shadow were prone to sarcastic comments and making sure Neil doesn’t pick too many fights he can’t win.

(Every time reminds Neil of the first. Some kid, one of the ones who’d clearly been given everything from cradle onwards, had decided he was entitled to Neil’s favourite glittery crayon. Neil, in turn, decided he was entitled to the other kid’s juice. And to forcibly take the crayon back, no matter how that would escalate events. Just before it got to any kind of tackle, Andrew turned up - and even though he was short Neil had no idea how he’d never noticed him before - and threatened the kid into leaving it be. Neil had tried to thank Andrew, and he’d shrugged and said, “‘S only fair.”)

(Andrew’s always been the same. All he wants is for things to be fair. Maybe a little more fair for his friends than anyone else, but isn’t that true of everyone?)

“Why did you pick us?” Neil laughs around the mouth of a beer bottle, looking into Andrew’s ever-clear hazel eyes.

“This isn’t gym, Josten,” Andrew replies. “And if it were, you wouldn’t be my first choice.”

“I’m the fastest runner you know. Fact.”

“Less so since you graduated high school. You got lazy.”

Neil rolls his eyes, an over-exaggerated gesture to minimise the world rolling with them. “Whatever, Minyard. Stop avoiding the question.”

“Not my fault your questions are vague.”

Neil would groan if he hadn’t had almost sixteen years of dealing with his shitheel of a best friend. (Even if ‘friend’ has never encapsulated all that Andrew is to him. He’d choose ‘soulmate’, because he’s sure there’s no one else who could ever understand the core of what it is to be _Neil_ as well as Andrew does, but since Andrew rejects Neil’s friendship almost daily and scorns the idea of romance, Neil sticks to ‘Andrew’.) “Andrew. At the young age of… whatever. Whenever. Young. We were young. You stuck up for me so I didn’t get in a brawl with a rich kid who’d have fought dirty when all I wanted was my glitter crayon. And since then you’ve been more loyal than, like, an extremely long-lived dog, right? So what did you see in the dumbass who cared more about his crayon than childhood friends? And… whoever else. I know there were more,” Neil says, turning his grin to Kevin for half a second.

Andrew raises his eyebrows a fraction of an inch, a movement barely visible in the dim light, “Dumbasses who wouldn’t survive a day without me.”

“Ha! Day,” Neil says, nudging Kevin beside him, who’s clearly regretting ever befriending the others. There’s nothing new there.

There’s no point in arguing or wheedling. Andrew’s answer won’t change. It’s the truth - technically. Andrew is technicalities and half-truths layered in frustration, and Neil wouldn’t change him.

“Shut the fuck up,” Kevin replies.

“It’s your fucking _birthday_ , grumpy,” Neil says.

“His middle name is grumpy,” Andrew says, and pushes himself up from the creaking sofa to move to the kitchen.

“Bring us more drinks,” Neil calls after him, even though of course Andrew will, because this way he gets Andrew’s middle finger held up as a parting gift.

“Why are you guys the worst?” Kevin mutters.

“I thought you’d be happy. The big twenty-one. You can legally get wasted now,” Neil says.

“Because the law’s stopped me before.”

“Not the point,” Neil says. “If you’re not careful I’m gonna make you dance.”

“No,” Kevin replies, almost as deadpan as Andrew.

“I’ve got _Just Dance_. The Wii remotes are charged,” Neil says, pressing himself further into Kevin’s side to be an annoyance. It’s his specialty.

“This is my birthday. Why are you trying so hard to ruin everything I have?” Kevin replies, but he turns to meet Neil’s eyes, and he’s smiling a little bit.

“You love it,” Neil replies, grinning unabashedly.

“Not even a little bit,” Kevin’s smile gets louder.

“A little bit,” Neil disagrees.

“No.”

“Yes,” Neil says, and presses a sloppy kiss to Kevin’s cheek (dangerously close to his lips, but there’s the fun), just as Andrew returns with drinks.

“Thank fuck,” Kevin says, just shy of emphatic, and reaches for his drink as though he’s going to bathe in vodka.

“Are you harassing him again? Without me?” Andrew asks, and someone’s taken his chair, so he makes the others move up. He still ends up almost in Neil’s lap, but who’s complaining?

“Always,” Neil says, and puts his arms around his grumpy friends’ shoulders.

* * *

Monday morning dawns, cold and harsh, but more often than not Neil wakes up with a warm body next to his, so instead of trying to face the day he rolls over.

Into more empty bed.

That simple surprise is enough to wake Neil properly, an instinct drilled into him years ago he never quite managed to get rid of. “Andrew?” He whispers, as though he could miss five feet of concentrated annoyance.

He’s at work. Maybe. Neil had never gotten the hang of his hours, and if there’s light outside - there is - it’s probably waking hours. Neil tries to close his eyes and drift off again, but the bed’s too cold, so he rolls back, but the heat from his body has already evaporated. There’s no point. He groans, sitting up.

The clock on his phone says it’s not even 7am yet. Which is much too early for Andrew to have left for work. He wouldn’t start before nine, and if Andrew turned up more than a minute early it’d be a miracle. Neil would believe in Heaven before he’d believe Andrew Minyard turned up anywhere early. (Andrew isn’t the type for blatant disrespect, not anymore, but he’s never been a fan of wasting time in places he doesn’t have to be.)

It’s hard to remember all of last night, but Neil is pretty sure Andrew hadn’t left. He hadn’t drunk enough to be unable to drive, but Neil is clingy drunk, and Andrew gave up on resisting years ago. In most ways, anyway.

Point is, Neil likes sharing a bed with Andrew, and Andrew decided to allow it. Most of the time. But always after drinking. (“Someone has to make sure you don’t kill yourself, Josten.”)

The thought that Andrew should be here sticks in Neil’s head like the absence of a hangover.

No texts.

No missed calls.

Neil chews on the side of his thumbnail, a habit Andrew would - and has - kicked him for.

He calls Kevin. “Why the fuck are you awake this early?” Kevin answers, because he always answers Neil, even hungover and half-asleep.

“I thought I’d go for a run,” Neil says, trying for and missing flippant. “Wanna come with?”

Kevin hangs up. Neil dials back. “Fuck off,” Kevin says.

“Did Andrew stay here last night?”

“Probably,” Kevin mumbles. “He always does.”

“I mean, yeah,” Neil says. “But he’s not here.”

Kevin almost laughs. “Are you afraid your one night stand ditched you?”

“He’s not-” Neil starts, but Kevin knows, so he stops. Kevin falls silent, but he’s not asleep. It takes Kevin a while to start up, so Neil just lets him.

The truth of the matter is that Neil has been able to predict Andrew’s actions, if not the reasons behind them, since they were fifteen. Nothing Andrew does is able to surprise Neil anymore. For that, if for nothing else, Andrew should be here, pushing off Neil’s stray limbs and eventually Neil himself when his morning breath is “far too fucking much”.

And Kevin knows that, too. “He’s not here,” Kevin eventually says, though Neil had guessed that much.

“Yeah,” Neil says. His thumb is starting to bleed, so he forces it down from his mouth. “I think I will go for a run.”

“Meet me at the park,” Kevin says, and hangs up.

Kevin looks faintly grey, and the smell of vodka still clings to him like cheap perfume. It’s not a surprise, and Neil knows he can run through a hangover as though there’s nothing different. Neil doesn’t want to run fast anyway. There’s nothing to outrun. But Kevin being here is a testament to their friendship and Neil appreciates that.

“Hey,” Neil says, and aims a punch at Kevin’s bicep (a considerable target), and Kevin doesn’t comment on the lacking energy.

“Sure you can keep up?” Kevin asks, and jogs on the spot. Neil doesn’t comment on the lacking energy.

“I was born ready,” Neil says, and they set off.

They don’t run for long. Kevin’s slept for four hours, maximum, and worry has always sapped Neil’s energy (even when worry felt like all he was). When they loop back to the park - their park - Neil makes an offhand comment about Kevin getting lazy, and Kevin hauls Neil over his shoulders to throw him into a pile of leaves.

It’s almost normal. Andrew wouldn’t come on a run with them.

But they left worry behind a long time ago, and it’s foreign now.

* * *

_yours if you want it._ Neil looks at the blue speech bubble, under a picture of Andrew’s favourite ice cream. An obvious bribe.

Sent four hours ago, and the text only says “Delivered”. Not read. (Andrew either doesn’t know how to turn read receipts off or he doesn’t care.)

It’s been two days, and it’s the longest Neil’s gone without seeing Andrew since the last “holiday” his mother dragged him on at the age of sixteen. The world felt wrong without Andrew with him then, too, but there was the knowledge that no matter the distance, Andrew would be there for him.

He’s not now.

And Neil doesn’t know why.

He holds his phone up, and Renee’s voice is at his ear, soft and smooth and happy to say his name. “Renee Walker, you’re an angel and a delight to talk to,” Neil says, because a few years ago someone said he had to be more affectionate, and Kevin taught him never to half-ass anything.

Renee laughs. “How are you, Neil?”

“I’m fine,” he says, because everyone knows it’s never going to be the truth. He presses the phone harder into the side of his face and pushes away the question, for just a few more seconds. “Tell me about your day. Your week.”

“Okay,” Renee says, gently, and tells him about her latest assignment, her dinner plans with Dan, a painting she saw online, the latest antics of Nicky’s dog. Everyone knows Renee is the one to go to for calm. She’s the definition of the word.

Neil’s breath catches, and he knows it’s audible, but Renee doesn’t break stride. When the words finally leave his mouth it will change everything. When things leave the bubble of Neil and Kevin and Andrew, they’re _out_. Not quite public, but not private. (Neil doesn’t know exactly when he decided Andrew and Kevin may as well be extensions of his own consciousness, but it was long ago. Too long ago to matter.) “Have you seen Andrew recently?” Neil says quietly, cutting Renee off, but she won’t mind.

She pauses, grasping immediately what Neil hasn’t said. “We had tea on Thursday,” She says, which isn’t the whole truth, but is the answer to Neil’s question just the same.

Neil nods, and realises she won’t have heard any more than the rustle of his hair against the microphone.

Renee lets the silence hang for a few more seconds, and he thinks that, for once, she doesn’t know what to say. That’s almost harder than the rest of it. “Did anything happen?”

_She thinks we broke up_. Neil almost laughs. He knows everyone thinks there’s something happening in their trio, though opinions differ on what, exactly. “No. It was normal, and then… it wasn’t.”

Andrew not spending some moments on Neil or Kevin every day isn’t normal. They don’t spend all their time together, but it’s a close call.

Their relationships had never been normal, but this break in _their_ normal feels like it could split Neil apart. He hangs onto the determination he buried, a determination that could rip apart the fabric of reality. (He hopes.)

Renee stays silent. She knows Andrew the best, out of people who aren’t _them_ , but she knows there’s no advice she can offer that Neil or Kevin haven’t already thought of. She wants to, Neil can hear that, and he’s thankful for the attempt anyway. “I’ve got a shift later, but I’ll come by yours with coffee after three?” She offers.

“Please,” Neil says on an exhale. If Neil suddenly found himself in a detective film, Andrew would be his first choice for mystery partner, but Renee would be the obvious second choice. Kevin would be the love interest. He’s the pretty one.

“Okay, Neil, I’ll see you in a bit,” Renee says. The soft way she says his name is unique, a kiss on the cheek, a whiff of perfume you can’t quite catch. Renee’s always been too good for anyone he knows.

Andrew borrows her for her charred, burnt, twisted centre; the part of her she can’t change but can build on. That’s the part of her Neil needs now - the part that speaks Andrew’s language as well as Neil does. Or should be able to.

He doesn’t know why Andrew’s silent to him now.

* * *

Renee turns up, carrying the scent of cinnamon tea and black coffee. There’s no sugary smell as there would be if Andrew’s order was with them. Neil tries to appreciate the comforting smell of coffee as he leans in to greet Renee.

Renee perches on the counter and makes small talk, and doesn’t look around Neil’s empty (and conspicuously tidy - no clues lying just out of sight) apartment with still-too-sharp eyes. She’s waiting and so is he.

“I thought we could go to his apartment,” Neil says, when she finishes describing one customer who hadn’t understood why she couldn’t replace his coffee even though it was ‘too hot’.

“Okay. You have a key?” She asks, pulling her jacket back on. She never took her shoes off.

“Yeah,” Neil says. Andrew hadn’t given Neil a key to his first apartment, but all that meant is that Neil had to break in when he wanted to see him. He gave Neil a key to his second apartment the day he’d moved in.

“I’ll drive,” Renee says.

Neil’s glad not to be alone in Andrew’s apartment. It’s always been wrong to be alone there. “Nothing’s changed,” He says.

Renee snorts. “You expected there to be a glaring neon sign that says ‘explanation’?”

Neil makes an acquiescent gesture. “That would not be Andrew’s style.”

Everything’s where it should be, which is a relative statement. Andrew organises things to his own configurations. The only helpful thing is that Andrew doesn’t own anything he doesn’t need, and half of it is at Neil’s or Kevin’s, so his apartment is sparsely decorated at best.

But still. Nothing’s out of place. It’s like Andrew should come home any minute, or that he should have any of the past days. Clothes half out of the wardrobe, blinds drawn but curtains open, bowls clean but not in the cupboard, phone on the counter but out of charge-

Phone.

Neil picks up the phone that’s identical to his own. It doesn’t turn on, and that feels like his senior year of high school. But he knows where Andrew’s charger is. Renee follows him into Andrew’s bedroom and they perch on Andrew’s bed.

Neil stares down at the phone as though watching it will make it power up faster. “Do you know what Christmas drinks you’ll have yet?” he asks Renee.

“Yes,” She replies with a groan. “I hate Christmas drinks.” She describes them, and then some stories from Christmas past of unruly customers. Neil’s heard them before, but that just makes them feel better.

Renee stops talking as soon as the phone charges up. She knows as well as Neil that his phone shouldn’t be here - Andrew shouldn’t have been at his place, ergo his phone shouldn’t either. Andrew shouldn’t be without his phone, period.

Neil unlocks the phone and opens Andrew’s messages, but there’s nothing new. Neil frowns to see Andrew’s phone on airplane mode. He didn’t even think Andrew knew what that was.

Perhaps dumbly, he opens Andrew’s message chain with himself, at the top of the list. He’s glad Renee’s not looking over his shoulder anymore - he doesn’t question his own right to read Andrew’s messages, but he doesn’t know how much that extends to Renee.

At the bottom of the screen, there’s an undelivered message. He shoves the phone, screen still on, directly into Renee’s hand, and paces toward the window. He grabs the windowsill as though it could provide any stability.

“He’s-” Renee says, sounding shocked.

“Being Andrew. Doing what he always does.” Neil cuts her off, words clipped.

Renee doesn’t guess. Or maybe she already knows.

Andrew’s protecting them.

* * *

“No,” Kevin says, and he lurches like the world is moving under his feet, but Neil’s already next to him for support. He always is.

_rikos back._ The words seem like they’re imprinted on Neil’s eyes.

Riko shouldn’t be here, not in their town. He shouldn’t know where they are. He shouldn’t care about them anymore (though a voice in Neil’s head says he always knew Riko wouldn’t stop caring). He shouldn’t have found Andrew first, of all of them.

(“Who’s this? Your guard dog?” Riko said, with a cruel laugh. Everything about him seemed cruel, then. The cruelty was new. “I thought Wesninski was enough. But, oh, I forgot; he’s all bark, no bite.”

“I bite enough for three,” Andrew responded. Neil was still young enough to be surprised that Andrew didn’t mind being compared to their guard dog.)

It almost feels cruel to tell Kevin, but Neil’s never been the type to keep things from Kevin. There’s a part of him that’s supposed to keep secrets, but never from Kevin, the closest thing he has to a brother. Nothing would be worse than that. (“We share everything,” Neil said through a drunken haze. Kevin pulled Neil closer. Their shared history, their thoughts, their love fills the small space between them. _Everything_.)

“It could be a coincidence,” Kevin chokes out, but he doesn’t believe it.

Renee puts her hand on Kevin’s, but he looks at it like it’s foreign. Neil can feel him shake, every inch of his side pressed against Neil’s. “We need to know where he is,” she says.

Kevin sighs, closes his eyes. It’s a hard truth, but no one knows - knew - Riko like Kevin does. “There’s only one place.”

“You don’t have to go,” Neil says, because he knows Kevin does.

Kevin’s green eyes melt. “I always knew I would.”

Neil knew it, too.

But it wasn’t supposed to be like this.

* * *

The only dreams Neil remember are either epic stories or absolutely unremarkable. He’ll dream of his mother doing laundry or escaping a totalitarian government. There is no in between.

But the only recurring dream he has ever had is Andrew and him storming a castle. Though Andrew, in their real lives, is always to Neil’s side and half a step behind him, in Neil’s dreams he leads the way up the hill. Neil watches the back of Andrew’s hair, blonde set on fire by the sun.

Sometimes Andrew turns around with a vicious, spiked grin, and says “It’s time to end the monarchy.” (A line he’s said in Neil’s waking hours, too, that he doesn’t think he’ll ever forget.)

In his dreams, they never reach the castle. Sometimes the dream fades to black, a faint feeling of hope and restlessness racing through Neil’s veins when he wakes. Sometimes he has to watch Andrew crumple under an invisible weight, fire turning to liquid red through Neil’s fingers.

Andrew knows about Neil’s dreams. He’d never believed in interpreting them. Neil wishes he’d listened to Andrew more.

And driving without Andrew lasts too long.

* * *

They pull up outside Kevin’s childhood home. It feels almost like being back to the start. It’s not the start, because it’s not a crayon, because this isn’t where Kevin was born. It’s not the start for Riko, and it isn’t the start for Neil or Andrew, but when they’d looked at each other and tried to choose a place to go, Kevin had said that he’d always liked Columbia. That had been all it took.

(Kevin said he’d spent two years here, and he couldn’t remember either of them. But this was the last house to see Kayleigh Day alive, and Neil wasn’t surprised Kevin would want to return. Eventually. With all the strength he could find, both internal and external.)

(It’s not a surprise that Riko would want to corrupt this place, either.)

Kevin leads, with smaller steps, to a side door, and Neil bends to let them in. He makes sure he’s a step in front of Kevin before he calls out, “Riko.”

A family he doesn’t recognise smiles at him from on top of the fireplace. Neil doesn’t let himself think about them. He thinks of Renee, her hands on knives, and he thinks of Kevin, who’s not shaking anymore. He thinks of sacrifice, and wonders, briefly, what they wouldn’t give up.

There’s movement upstairs, so Neil follows the sound.

Nothing’s disturbed through the house, and the air is filled with tension.

Riko is black and white against a clean background, his smile as fake and controlled as the rest of him. “Finally. The cavalry’s here.”

Andrew isn’t bound, isn’t tied, and there is no blood that Neil can see. The relief is fleeting, because he would be more surprised if there were. Even so, Andrew wouldn’t be here without them by his own desire. “What do you want?” Neil asks, short and sharp.

“Just a chat with my dearest brother. But I got this one instead,” Riko says.

(A text message, and Andrew picked up the wrong phone. It wasn’t the first time and it wouldn’t be the last. Andrew’s eyebrows arched, and Neil tried to read over his shoulder. “Neil,” Andrew said. “You haven’t finished your drink.”)

“Sorry, I don’t see anyone else descended from the devil in this room,” Neil says, looking around dramatically. Renee’s already next to Andrew, not talking, but checking in the ways she can. Riko doesn’t care. They’re inconsequential now.

“I’m here,” Kevin says, and his voice is as strong as it can be. Neil feels proud, but he doesn’t look away from Riko. He wishes he could take Kevin out of this situation entirely.

Riko closes his eyes, smile still on his face. “It’s been so long since I’ve heard that voice! Give me a moment to just… soak in the moment.”

“Not too long, fuckface. We’re all still technically breaking and entering,” Neil says. They’re pretty clearly in a nursery, if the situation hadn’t been creepy enough.

Riko waves a hand in a dismissive gesture.

For a final showdown, Neil has to admit this is weak. He never expected anything truly grandiose from Riko; he’s made of microaggressions. He controlled Kevin little by little, and all it took was one denial to win. This isn’t the tables turning, and it can’t be. It never will be. It just might be closure for Riko, though, and that’s enough to keep them all there.

(Their teachers could never tell the four of them apart. They used the same pens, played the same games, wore the same clothes. They tried name tags, but the boys thought it was great fun to swap them around and see if anyone could tell. The only thing that stuck were numbers. It was as much of a surprise as a relief to the adults.)

(At the age of thirteen, Neil sat at lunch with Kevin and Andrew, and suddenly frowned. Kevin was trying to convince Andrew about a new sport he’d started watching, but Neil interrupts them to ask why they’d ever let Riko be number one. He’d gotten weird, recently, and he’d separated himself from the inseparable group.)

(At eighteen, Kevin was shaking and miserable. Neil had never understood why he couldn’t let Riko go, but Kevin managed to say that Riko _needs me, Neil, I know you understand_. Neil looked at Andrew and he did. Andrew nodded, the end of a conversation they’d had hours ago. “Kevin, where did you want to go to college? We can leave now. There’s nothing more here for us.”)

Riko’s face changes suddenly. “You never said goodbye,” and there’s the emotion he’s lacked for years.

Kevin steps forward, next to Neil. Their hands find one another, and Riko notices, and it’s like his face is torn apart. But Kevin redirects his attention. “You wouldn’t have let us.” _Us_ isn’t, and never has been, Kevin and Riko. Once it was Riko and Kevin and Andrew and Neil, but Riko thought that was Riko and Kevin, and Andrew and Neil, and that division didn’t sit right.

Riko thought that Kevin was meant to belong to him. They never knew when that started or why, but secretly Neil thought it was to do with the way he looked at Andrew. There was no guilt in this belief. But what Riko had never got was that things being different didn’t have to change everything. Neil’s relationship with Andrew was different than it was with Kevin, but that didn’t change the bonds that flowed between the three of them. It didn’t have to change the way the four of them were. (Sometimes Neil thought Andrew looked at him differently, too. Gave too easily. Smiled at him.)

“We were never meant to be apart,” Riko says, and it’s rehearsed, but it’s splintered.

Neil shakes his head, but this is Kevin’s fight. “We couldn’t stay,” Kevin whispers. “It was breaking us. Me. It was breaking me.”

Riko’s eyes change with that, like he’d never considered he could hurt Kevin. It was never his intention, Neil can believe. Neil can’t believe, though, how he could miss the effect his love had on Kevin. Riko takes a step forward, and Kevin and Neil do not step back. But it’s hard.

Andrew watches them with tired, sharp eyes. Neil wants to tell him he can rest. It’s not his battle, not now. He’s done his part.

“I didn’t mean to,” Riko says. He doesn’t reach a hand towards Kevin, like reality is finally reaching in to shatter his illusion.

“I know,” Kevin says. “But that doesn’t change anything.”

“Please,” Riko whispers.

Kevin hesitates, but he shakes his head. “It can’t, Riko.”

Kevin’s hand is a vice around Neil’s. He never wanted to say no to Riko. He knew any word could be the final blow. So much of who Riko was revolved around Kevin, and that was a heavy weight to bear.

But the burden should never have been Kevin’s.

Riko sits. “I can’t fix this.”

The silence echoes.

The bonds of old loyalty fall, and they sound like the wind whispering through empty halls. Kevin’s hand trembles, but Andrew’s gaze is strong and steady on Neil’s. “It’s over,” Neil whispers.

* * *

They leave Riko in a house that does not belong to him, but they’re not cruel. Kevin still knows how to get to Riko’s father, a man who’s stern but not uncaring, and who likes to check in with Kevin every so often. He’ll check on Neil and Andrew, too, but only when the opportunity strikes. Riko isn’t going to be alone for long.

“He’ll be okay,” Neil says, fingers not quite numb between Kevin’s.

“And now you’re not going to think about him anymore,” Andrew says, which isn’t quite an order, and isn’t quite the truth either.

Renee buys them dinner, and offers them soft smiles and lips on their cheeks. “I have to get home. But I’ll see you all soon.”

Friendship is knowing when to say goodbye.

Neil drives them all back to his apartment, and they pile out of the car, because sometimes friendship also means knowing you don’t have to say goodbye.

“I haven’t slept much the past few nights,” Kevin says, half of an explanation.

“You know where the bed is,” Neil says. Years ago, the only thing in his apartment he’d deemed worthy of spending extra on was the bed - big enough to comfortably fit three boys and their demons.

Kevin nods, and makes his way to the bedroom. He still stands tall. The end was a long time coming, but that only softens the blow a little.

Neil and Andrew still sit too close on the sofa. Neil breathes in and out, and it feels like home.

“You,” Neil says, switching the channel too many times, “are not allowed to leave me again.”

“I see the time apart has not reduced your ridiculous dramatics.”

“Well, I’m no Kevin,” Neil says.

Andrew doesn’t reply, but that’s not a surprise.

Neil turns the TV off again and turns. “I mean it, though.”

Andrew watches Neil for a couple long seconds, eyes engaged but unsurprised. “I know.”

“Good,” Neil says. Then he closes the distance between him and Andrew, and there’s no surprise there, either. It’s new, but it isn’t news. Every road led here.

But still, he checks. Because it’s Andrew. Because it’s Andrew and Neil, and no matter how okay things are, they may never be fine. “Okay?” he asks softly, breath warm on Andrew’s face.

“Josten,” Andrew chides quietly. “You lost the capacity to surprise me a long time ago.”

**Author's Note:**

> you can find more of my writing or talk to me on [my tumblr](http://reneewvlkers.tumblr.com/) :)


End file.
